Geri Horner likes herself "a bit better" these days.

Geri Horner

Geri Horner

The former Spice Girls singer - who married Formula 1 boss Christian Horner last year - thinks she was always a "late developer" and had a "stunted" emotional life until the last decade.

The 43-year-old star said: "I've always been a bit of a late developer. I have! 100 per cent.

"In certain areas [I achieved a lot], but my emotional life was probably a little bit stunted. My emotional development didn't start happening until my 30s, I think.

"I used to say that I didn't want a relationship because it steals your energy. I actually said that. At the beginning, you're punching through with bravado, but at about 29, I suddenly realised that the bravado had completely kicked out.

"The humility to go: actually, I don't know the answers. I think I definitely am in a phase where I like myself a bit better now."

The 'Lift Me Up' singer - who has 10-year-old daughter Bluebell with former boyfriend Sacha Gervasi - adopted her husband's surname when they wed as she felt it unified their family as a "tribe", though she is adamant it won't make her lose her own identity.

She told The Guardian newspaper: "I've read the storybooks about finding Prince Charming, but I come from divorced parents so I was always a little bit more sceptical and I wanted to marry for love.

"But I thought, if you're going to marry someone and become a unit of a family together, then whether he takes my name or I take his, that to me is not the point.

"The point is that you are becoming a tribe together. It was almost like, let go of your importance, because that doesn't matter. Don't lose your identity though, because that does."

And though she is most commonly known to people as Geri Halliwell, the 'Look At Me' hitmaker insists that isn't who she is "deep down".

She added: "You know my real name's Geraldine, which my husband and my mother both call me.

"We all materialise at different ages. That's who I am, deep down I am Geraldine Horner."

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